


travellers (lost in time)

by not_a_baby_unicorn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Deviates From Canon, F/M, Failed Mission, Fluff, Gen, Kinda MCU Canon, Kinda Marvel Comics Canon, M/M, Not In Chronological Order, Post CA:TWS, Sometimes not so fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_a_baby_unicorn/pseuds/not_a_baby_unicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I would like this version of events much more if it wasn't the one where I get stabbed in the side with an antiserum-infused blade.</p><p>I would like it more if it wasn't the version in which Fury decided that he could spare a few superheroes.</p><p>I would like it more if Nat didn't run out of ammunition, if Clint didn't get in the line of fire, if Steve didn't nearly die.</p><p>Those on the losing side don't get to choose the peace terms.</p><p>(What I do like about this version for sure is that one time the sun came up just right and got caught in Steve's hair, pink and gold shimmering. It's a pretty stupid reason, but there you go.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	travellers (lost in time)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Just a heads-up that this went unbeta'd and was written kinda fast, so please point out any glaring mistakes and I'll be glad to fix 'em! 
> 
> Written in a slightly messed-up chronological order, with jumps back and forth in time. Sorry if it gets a bit confusing!  
> Half in the MCU, part in comic canon, all-round messed up stuff. I never said I was very good at my job.
> 
> I was aiming at a sarcastic but slightly angsty tone but it seems that all morphed along the way. Enjoy this piece of trash while your standards are low and levels of good fiction even lower.
> 
> Comments and Kudos much appreciated!

"It’s been three days.”

We’re sitting up against crumbling brick in an ash-filled forest.  Natasha is patching up Clint again as the brave idiot tore his stitches while getting us to safety. Sam’s sitting cross-legged and fiddling with radio dials, grasping at that singular faint signal like a drowning man grasps a knife edge; anything to be pulled out of deep water.

None of us are murderers.

None of us are brainwashed.

None of us have nightmares playing on repeat that hide in the corners of our eyes.

So what if we have killed for fun, or have lost most of the twentieth century in a crystalline haze of ice, or if we wake up with a name on our lips and covered with a sweaty sheen for all the wrong reasons?  We're a team. We are perfect heroes that save the earth every time, a wholesome and generic smile playing on our lips, and never fail.

We are liars.

We grit our teeth and hide blood behind them as we wave to the loving, tender crowds. They count on us. Who do we get to count on?

We're split open, sewn back up, still a little bit rough at the edges. But even thought Clint's injured, Nat's out of ammunition and I'm dying from some unidentified poison gash in my side, we're together. 

Steve puts a hand on my shoulder, my human shoulder, awaiting a reply. The gesture is reassuring, skin against skin, a layer of sweat and dirt between. There are dark circles of insomnia haunting his features. I guess I have myself to blame for that.

He looks at me like I’ve hung the stars while I’ve done quite the opposite, extinguished all the other lights and pointed at the sky. He tilts his head, the ghostly flicker of a bitter smile tainting his lips. I would smile but then I’d be spitting blood so I’m just slowly dying by his side. And yet he smiles at me as if I weren’t a death wish in a hollow body.

The radio acts as an icebreaker, static, the quiet background hum of white noise deafening. Clint adjusts his hearing aid. The desert haze glistens on the asphalt and the heat is unbearable, yet Steve's hand remains. He clears his throat, waiting for me to make a remark that would shrug off the severity of the situation. I disappoint him.

“Three days. I suppose, if you’ve been counting.”

He sniffs. "Is it too late to disagree? It’s such a personal matter that I guess I was thinking you’d do the same.”

I was counting too.

It is a hard job, one in which you live every day as your last. You kiss. You fuck. You kill. As with all jobs- someone's gotta do it, and we're the lucky punks who get to play with fire. We live a dangerous life; the past has provided us with that promise and delivered, too many memories with edges blurring and the number of things to be thankful for dwindling. A dangerous life indeed, but what is a dangerous life to a dying man?

There’s always love, I guess. I do a lot of guessing nowadays.

Love is what is left after all humanity has been stripped from a person. There is nothing stronger that bonds people, however fucking cliché’d that sounds. Love is what keeps you up at night sobbing into the scarred palms of someone else's hands and love is what catches you off-guard in a dark alleyway and threatens you with a rusty fork. Wait, that’s not quite true. Love wouldn’t threaten, love would just go ahead and stab, twisting your insides into something different entirely and that something hurts every time you look at that unlucky bastard or bastards you choose to love.

Love saved Steve that day, grabbed him by the ankles and spat a curse into his ear with a cry of “Not today, punk, and not any other day while I’m alive”, and then love pulled him out of the water and laid him on the shore. 

He's staring at me again, lost eyes and wild hair matted with my blood, watching me as if I could break at any moment. It's a stupid thing to do. We're all as fragile as the weakest member of the team and he knows that, but he's still watching me cautiously as if he expects me to spontaneously burst into flames. I don't think it matters now.

Nat stands up, laying Clint on the ground and appears by my side, wrapping her hands around my metal arm and curling up beside me. And suddenly the earth is far too small, too intimidating, there's too much going on. I grab Steve's hand and pull him close, the gap between us now nonexistent. Clint hobbles over of his own accord and lays down across Natasha's lap, but she doesn't mind, she's already running fingers through his hair, murmuring in Russian. Sam is fiddling with the dials on the radio and Steve pulls him into a one-sided embrace. And in this way we're all sitting up against that wall, like some goddamn prisoners of war waiting for the firing squad to come at dawn. That's what we are, after all. 

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

"Do you think the dead still love?"

We're up against a dying tree in a burned landscape, hands clasped together, shoulder to shoulder, fingers entwined. He considers my question, savoring the answer on the tip of his tongue as he speaks. After what seems like a lifetime, Steve looks me in the eye. 

"I don't think it matters."

"Oh."

My reply is a broken exhale, a half-formed question that I dare not ask. Instead of continuing with clumsy words I lean against his shoulder. 

He is the first to move as if in slow motion, far too fluid to be human. I gravitate towards him, head tilted lightly upwards, darting eyes and flushed lips parting as the arid air between us is replaced with hot flesh, mouths groping for each other. Our noses bump and teeth skid and the breath we share is stale but it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, even if there's blood on my tongue and on his now too.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

Darkness comes, and with it old friends. They're unwanted here, but sit with us anyway.

A flask is taken out of someone's (possibly Clint's or Natasha's, you cannot tell who owns what anymore) pocket. It is silver, covered in intricate etchings and shapes that I can't make out in the dim light of the moon. I can practically feel Steve itching to draw it, graphite gliding smoothly over paper, spreading buttery lines across the sheet. 

The others are much more interested in the contents. Nat pulls the silver bottle towards her first, taking a swig with an expressionless face and swallowing it down calmly as Clint chokes on his own tongue, grimacing. Sam takes a careful sip and passes it towards me. I only pretend to drink, droplets heavy in my mouth and memories tasting of knives and ice, a lifetime ago, before I spit it back into the flask. I move towards Steve, but he shakes his head.

"I can't get drunk, remember?"

Natasha cuts in. "We're not drinking to get drunk, we're drinking to enjoy."

Clint catches her eye and they nod slowly in unison. Understanding hits me, and I feel privileged; judging by the faces of my companions, they do too. Steve sniffs the luminously clear liquid and wrinkles his nose. He gives the bottle to the next person.

"A toast," Sam begins, "to those who we were supposed to be protecting. God save them."

Steve mutters an "Amen", but the rest of us just stare at the gravel between our feet. It's one night since Fury last contacted us, but if anyone is bothered by that, they don't let it on.

Nobody sleeps well, if at all. Natasha and Clint are leaning back to back against each other, a makeshift wall of body heat to share. I'm lying by Steve's side and listening to his steady breathing, the steadiest I've heard him since- since-

His hand is around my wrist, my human wrist, as if he's subconsciously checking that I'm still here by keeping his fingers on my pulse. It's nice to know that someone cares if you're alive or dead.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

Natasha moves towards me, lips parted. Her breath smells of sweet liquor, even though she's probably chugged a bottle of vodka. 

My brain doesn't even have time to compute how exactly she got into my room before she's on top of me. HYDRA would be disappointed.

I don't like thinking of HYDRA. It comes up in my dreams often enough

"We could go. Right now. How would you like that?"

Her voice is heavy, dripping with seduction and slurred vowels. She moves her face closer towards mine and I suddenly feel very uncomfortable in my own skin.

"Natalia, I can't leave Steve. I won't leave him. And you have Barton to think of."

Nat grins wickedly, her finger tracing the outline of my lips.

"What if I told you I don't care for the archer?"

"That's a lie."

"Oh, is it now? I can read you as well as Rogers can, you know. We were lovers once, James, you remember, back in the era of the Red Room..."

I grit my teeth and force myself to look her in her poisonous eyes. 

"That wasn't me. This isn't Soviet Russia anymore. "

"So you're not leaving with me?" She pouts. 

I try to be kind, but it's hard to be when an assassin is straddling you in the middle of the night. Especially an assassin famous for killing with her thighs alone. I take a deep breath.

"Natalia, I am sorry. But I have lost him once before, and that is enough for a lifetime."

She drops her gaze guiltily but doesn't move off of me. Instead, she reaches beneath my shirt and pulls out dogtags. Steve's dogtags.

A knowing look ripples across her features, and she hides it well.

"You can't blame me for doing something I was programmed to do. Pretty girls have methods. You should know."

I nod. I understand her. Widows seduce their targets before moving in, and you can't kill something that was hardwired into you along with half yor personality. She doesn't mean it. 

"I know, _koshka_. I know."

Natasha smiles, less drunk than I thought. 

"You passed."

"Passed what?" She moves lighter with every second, proving the whole 'drunk' thing to be an act.

"You're worthy of Cap. You wouldn't think I'd let you deflower government property before checking if you were serious?"

"What?"

"You're not an idiot, Barnes, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

With that, she's gone.

The next time she sees me and Steve together, she gives me a pointed look and makes an obscene gesture. I must look offended as she grins.

Steve turns to me and speaks in a hushed tone.

"Don't worry about it. She set Stark up to, ah, _interrogate_ me, just as she did you.

I choke on my spit.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

I am alone in the blue-tinged air. I know it's not fog, it's some kind of poison gas, but my modified biology has seen worse. If I keep moving, everything should work out in my favor.

I just hope none of those brave idiots decide to cover for me. Natalia should know better than to wander into strange gas clouds, but the others have some really stupid ideas sometimes. 

By that I mean Steve. If the punk decides to join me in this blue hell-hole, he better be ready to fight and not faint on me.

"Buck. Over here."

Speak of the devil.

"Steve, I told you not to follow me out here."

I can barely see his outline, but I can hear the grin in his voice. 

"Sorry, Bucky. Guess I'm not too good at taking orders." 

He's by my side now, nudging me playfully with his shield as if we weren't infiltrating a HYDRA base.

He notices my sudden stillness and puts his arm around me. 

"I know this is hard for you, but you're here with me now."

"That's the spirit. Just like the good ol' days before falling down a bottomless chasm and being taken under the wings of a group of evil scientists."

I move forward, gun at the ready. Steve falls in right behind me, walking slowly, silently. We fit together like two halves of the same fruit, sweet and tender with a tendency to turn bad. We read each other's eyes and actions like lovers. Is that what we are? 

I would ask him, but his pale blue eyes have a shine to them that suggests he already knows the answer. 

"You know, Buck, I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

I would like this version of events much more if it wasn't the one where I get stabbed in the side with an antiserum-infused blade.

I would like it more if it wasn't the version in which Fury decided that he could spare a few superheroes.

I would like it more if Nat didn't run out of ammunition, if Clint didn't get in the line of fire, if Steve didn't nearly die.

Those on the losing side don't get to choose the peace terms.

(What I do like about this version for sure is that one time the sun came up just right and got caught in Steve's hair, pink and gold shimmering. It's a pretty stupid reason, but there you go.)

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

I glance up and slam my metal fist against the table, a splintered thud that jerks the others awake.

“He’s Captain America. He practically inhales bullets. This- This shouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s not the only thing he inhales.” Clint quips unhelpfully. He looks pleased with himself, but the smirk vanishes as he feels my stare on him. He raises his hands in defeat, yawning in the process which isn’t the best idea given Nat’s murderous expression. Meanwhile,  Sam rubs his face, smearing sweat and the smell of cheap alcohol. He's pretending not to notice. 

“Jeez. Talk about lightening the mood.”

Natasha lifts her head from the table, drawling drunkenly with a seamless Russian accent. She props herself up on one hand and gestures to an imaginary audience with the other. She puts us all to shame.

“You’re all idiots. Except you, Sam. You’re cool by me.”

“Aw, Nat. And all it took was a bottle of vodka.”

“Four, actually.”

We all laugh, but it's forced and soon forgotten. 

The evening ends with everybody drunk as piss and staring at the empty seat at the head of the table.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

"You're beautiful. "

Lying in bed, sheets tangled around our feet, eyes shining and grins satisfied, I'm tracing along the ridge of his spine. He closes his eyes, murmuring in approval and I keep softly writing my name with a fingertip.

James Buchanan Barnes

James Bucky Barnes

James Buchanan Rogers

I must blush as Steve turns to me with a shiteating smirk and touches my cheek, his other hand tousling his already messy hair. I smile at him.

"I swear I mean it. You really are, what with eyes the color of something special and that _arse_ -"

"Bucky!" His face is now a burning lobster, mouth ridiculously agape. I lean forward to get him to close it and kiss him feverishly. 

"What? It's true. And it's all-" I kiss him again, cradle his face in my hands just mere centimeters away from my lips "- _mine_."

He laughs, and the sound could make dead men weep with joy. I look at him fondly and carry on speaking. 

"Y'know, I was thinking about things while you were sleeping. Just, you know, words and stuff."

"I wasn't sleeping! I was, eh, resting. That's it."

"Sure. You keep telling yourself that until you're ready for round three." I tilt my head and press a gentle kiss to his temple, moving down his face to find his lips and then his neck. He smells of aftershave, something with a hint of metallic cloves and cinnamon, possibly Old Spice. Talk about dramatic irony. 

"I'm always ready for round three. I'm Captain fuckin' America and I just so happen to have a super-enhanced body with supernatural stamina to match."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth? Watch your language, punk."

Steve giggles and sunlight catches his features, lighting up his face. He looks so peaceful, so happy; I can't believe he's leaving on a mission in three hours time.

"Bucky. You were saying...?"

"Oh yes. I was thinking about words, and how they fit into situations perfectly.  Like we have the ever-useful _stark_ ing mad. Or _buck_ naked. Get it?"

"There's also a phrase known as stark naked that Tony probably keyed while we were trapped in ice."

"Don't make me jealous, now."

I'm smiling as I say it, mocking him gently. We laugh for a moment and fall silent, lying on our sides and looking at each other, just looking. The palms of our hands are touching, barely there.

There is a certain beauty in fragility and fragmentation, I think to myself a few minutes after Steve leaves on the mission. A certain sacrifice in appreciation. 

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

I'm gunning down agents in an empty corridor, my movements erratic, my feet too far away. I run past a door. I run past a door. I run past a door, and it's still the _wrong_ door, and I'm in a labyrinth of exits, but all I'm looking for is the way inside.

Two hours in, Steve was compromised and taken in by HYDRA. Four hours later, a team was put together to find him. A rescue party. 

Natalia Romanova.

Clint Barton. 

Sam Wilson.

And me, Steve's shadow, melting faster with every second in the sunlight. 

Top agents, all with double-digit death counts, best eyesight and quickest reflexes. It should've been child's play. 

Then came the gamechanger.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

"Hey Bucky! Heard you were a rom-com now!"

It's Clint calling from where he's sitting with Sam. I am confused. 

"But I'm not a romantic comedy?"

"He means romantic communist. Since you and Steve are now _more than comrades_." Natasha winks and climbs over the couch to reach for her newest investment, a Stark-approved-and-modified miniature sniper rifle. She cocks her head and aims over her shoulder. "Still a very bad pun. Touché, Mr. Barton. "

I shake my head. "I'm not a communist."

Sam laughs. "The fair lady doth protest."

"I don't understand that reference."

Nat watches me pitifully from the couch, amused at my mewling.

"Steve left about half an hour ago with a face of a cat that got the cream. You can't lie to us, Barnes."

They look at me, sparks in their eyes and genuine smiles plastered to their faces. They approve. They accept. 

"It's... Alright with you guys?"

"Been rooting for ya since I heard about it." Clint itches his face and frowns. "Heard isn't the best word for it with eighty percent hearing loss. You get the gist."

"You're hardly the first. Take Tony, for instance. He's been with practically everybody. Or tried to, at least."

It falls into place. I fall into place.

In a screwed-up time, decades ahead of my last freelance memory, I can finally be myself. The feeling swells in my chest. 

I could be happy.

I could be happy, but I'm interrupted before I even get to that thought. 

Fury's face is on the television screen, replacing whatever was on as background noise.

"Team."

He speaks evenly, weighing out every word over the other.

"Grab your gear. It's Cap."

                -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

 The sand is not as I remember it, dry and smooth under my grasping fists. Opaque fragments of rocks glide under my touch and I am falling, sliding down the duneside and all the while I stare at the cloudless blue of the sky.

Funny how the smallest things are rooted in your memory. The blue of the sky matches Steve's eye color. That's one thing I do remember. 

I twist onto my back, the blueprint in my left hand now situated on my chest. My first instinct is to shove it under my belt, but the increase in speed is alarming and I'd rather not be fiddling with anything at the moment. The thick paper stays in my hand. Fluid, glittering, blistering.

The air stays still as I raise myself up and my spirits drop. An inkling of a memory trickles into vision, sending shivers down my spine like cold water.

I am alone.

I was not meant to end up like this.

I have lost Captain America.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

The gamechanger wasn't even interesting, or challenging. 

The gamechanger was the fact that in the end, we are all human. Modified, jacked up on serums and countless therapy "debriefings", all in all still human.

And humanity has many flaws but the major one, the completely unsolicited and unsolvable one, is our mortality. We succumb to fatal wounds and deaths of people close to us.

The Ancient Greeks had a way of summarising love. You had your Eros, or erotic love; Philia for friendship. Agape was unconditional, then Storge embodied sentiment. 

The kind of love I have for him goes beyond those labels. It is all of them, and none of them, and equally a mixture of something completely new.

 

It was beautiful.  It is beautiful. But every single one of those types of love went crashing down as soon as I saw him.

Strapped to a table (my memories are once again fluid and unstable, a blinding light and searing pain, eyes searching for a ghost.) and covered with wires. Cuts and bruises blooming a deep red across his naked torso, arms, legs, and it's all wrong, so wrong-

I rip the door out of its hinges and tear the wires off of him. And I realize what's wrong. 

He isn't healing.

The cuts are skin deep and bruises dark, and he was only taken in about four hours ago. We came as quickly as possible and all this should be gone, he should be brand new and ready to smile the sponsored smile.

Instead, I'm leaning over him like he did over me, once upon a time. His lip is bleeding slightly.

"Bucky."

My head snaps towards Steve, full attention on breaking his bonds. He isn't helping much.

"Bucky. Y'gotta get out of here."

He's bleary eyed, face pale and sweaty. I carry on sawing through the leather with my knife and ignore him.

"Bucky. They know you guys are here."

"Who did this to you?"

"It doesn't matter. "

"It matters to me, Steve. I want them to die, preferably by my hand."

"Buck, y'don't understand-" Steve's voice is frantic, eyes blank and staring.  I finally cut through the third strap, leaving two more to go.

"Nat's here. Clint's here. Sam's here. They've got me covered."

"Bucky-"

I don't get to answer him. All the breath is knocked out of me in one cold movement, piercing my side with a blade. My reaction times are sluggish.  I slump against the corroded table.

Steve. Steve's still strapped in.

With the last of my conscious strength I reach for my knife and shove it into my attacker. Then I pass out.

               -¤--¤-¤-¤--¤-

"It's been four days."

"SHEILD's not coming back for us."

"I know. I'm sorry"

"Don't be. I love you."

"I love you too."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's all of it! Haven't written any Stucky/Starbucks in a while, thought it'd be a good idea to try again. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you all think!
> 
> Koshka-Russian for cat.


End file.
